Software Engineer Career Paths: What’s Yours? 

When you’re first starting out on your software engineer career path, it’s common to assume that the overall direction will be linear. However, that isn’t always the case. Instead, you can take your career in a multitude of exciting directions, allowing you to focus on specific skill areas or interests and enter into a career that’s uniquely yours.

Cultivating your personal software engineering career path is far simpler if you know which options are available. If you aren’t sure which options are on the table, take an in-depth look at the following nine directions most common for software engineers at EPAM. 

The complete career path for a software developer

The career path for a software developer can be incredibly varied. As a result, there are many software engineer jobs that could potentially meet your needs. For example, along with frontend and backend developers, there are full-stack developers that handle both of those areas. 

Generally speaking, all software engineers move through four core stages, including: 

• Junior
• Mid-level
• Senior
• Lead

The junior level represents entry-level positions in the field. Often, professionals in these positions are recent graduates with limited on-the-job experience. In a junior software engineering role, the focus is on the fundamentals of development, including core languages, frameworks and overall design. 

At the mid-level, software engineers have enough experience to secure more autonomy on the job. They’re familiar with project advancement and can handle typical tasks without much direct oversight. In some cases, they may even play a critical part in planning projects, but they aren’t fully designing solutions, remaining in a more teamwork-oriented role instead of functioning in a leadership capacity.

In a lead developer position, professionals are akin to supervisors. Along with handling project-related tasks, they often guide the work of others, delegate responsibilities and serve as a liaison between staff members and management.

However, there’s also an advanced software engineer career track that goes beyond the stages above. Often, this serves as a middle ground between being an advanced individual contributor and shifting into managerial roles.

Systems engineer

One of the software engineering career paths that is seeing ample growth is systems engineer.

Often, the core responsibilities involve infrastructure management, multi-cloud system design, system analysis, coding, testing, documentation creation and similar duties. 

The exact languages and systems professionals in this field need to know vary by position. However, some commonly needed skill areas include Python, AWS, Azure, SQL, Google Cloud Platform, Java, Ruby on Rails and others of that nature.

Solution architect

Solution architect jobs are another option for those exploring potential career paths for software engineering professionals. These specialists evaluate, design and implement a range of IT solutions based on business needs. Often, the role is highly technical, requiring a broad knowledge base and specific capabilities.

Strategic thinking, timetable development, requirements gathering, problem-solving, solution design, automation, cloud architecture, infrastructure, scaling optimization and technical design abilities are all commonly needed. 

Engineering manager

As you move forward in your software engineering career, you generally have to choose between continuing on a technical track or shifting into management. When comparing the technical vs management career paths, technical roles mainly involve focusing on engineering skills and serving as an individual contributor in the long-term. Managers concentrate on team oversight, as well as strategy, planning, monitoring and tracking responsibilities.

The software engineering manager position is more administrative than technical, though a strong understanding of the technical aspects of software engineering is a must. That allows you to design, develop and guide projects, as well as effectively direct the work of others and delegate efficiently.

The engineering management career path includes several possible options, as those working in these positions may specialize in a particular type of engineering. For example, there are software engineering managers, systems engineering managers and cloud engineering managers. In each of these cases, the engineering manager has specialized expertise relating to that niche, making them more effective at overseeing others in those specific fields.

Chief technology officer

Functionally the top level of any technology career, the chief technology officer (CTO) oversees the technology needs, strategy and current state for an entire company. They’re the primary leader of the whole technology department, developing broader strategy, identifying priorities, determining new solution needs, overseeing budgets and supervising various department heads or managers.

While technical knowledge is a must — and the career path to CTO often begins by working in another technical role, such as a software engineering job — the position is highly administrative in nature and leadership-oriented. Communication, strategic thinking, morale management, organization, workforce motivation and similar skill areas are crucial. 

How to evolve your software engineer career

A career path for software engineers usually represents an evolution of their capabilities. Whether you want to secure your position as a technical expert or shift into a managerial role, it’s essential to take ownership of your journey to secure future offers for promotions.

1. Begin by identifying the path you’d like to follow. Assess where you are today professionally and compare that to the next step in your journey. 
2. Next, identify actions you can take and learning resources at your disposal, as well as any support you may need from your employer.
3. Then, discuss your career development plan with your manager. Express your desire to grow and provide the organization with more value. 
4. Additionally, be proactive about your development, seizing opportunities outside of work to advance your skills. 
5. Finally, repeat that process each time you advance after securing your footing in your new role and gaining sufficient skills and experience. 

If you have set your career goals high, feel free to check out our job opportunities at epam.com/careers where you might find your perfect role at EPAM.